The latest report out of Germany on Tuesday has an 8.5-billion-euro loan tranche to Greece plagued with even more delays related to a handful of unfulfilled conditions, despite last month’s “green light” by the Eurogroup and last week’s approval by a relevant Bundestag committee.
The latter body rubber-stamped Berlin’s portion of the scheduled bailout funding.
According to Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) isn’t ready to disburse 7.7-billion euros of the sum this week, as Euro zone finance ministers will reportedly again face the Greek issue at a July 10 Eurogroup meeting.
The reasons behind the latest delay, which come after more than a year of foot-dragging to conclude the second review of the Greek program (third bailout), are “delays in implementation of certain conditions.”
FAZ said the obscure but annoying matter of an indictment against three European technocrats once assigned to Greece’s privatization fund (HRADF) as consultants remains open. The German daily does not mention last week’s quashing of the indictment by a relevant supreme court prosecutor.
“Additionally, the Greek government has not implemented all of the necessary conditions (prior actions or “key deliverables”) for disbursement of the (loan) installment. According to the IMF four out of the total of seven remaining steps are missing, an omission that Athens admits to and has pledged to correct, Community diplomats say,” the FAZ report concludes.
Reports out of Athens the same day said a failure to liberalize store hours (Sunday shopping) and the regime for exercising the occupation of civil engineer are other ‘prior actions’ that await implementation.
